Northampton Saints v Leeds - Zurich Report

By Mark H
November 23 2003

A drop goal with less than thirty seconds remaining from Jonny Wilkinson won England the 2003 World Cup.......oops, wrong match! So, after the Lord Mayor’s Show came, well, the Lord Mayor’s Show.

Six try Saints had the try bonus points secured by half time, and despite some spirited resistance from the Tykes, secured the win by taking advantage of gaps in the defence to send the majority of the 11,292 (and I’d like to know exactly where they all came from, because to me it looked to be less than ten thousand) home happy.

The Smiths sang that they were “happy in the haze of a drunken hour”, but by 4.45 the Saintly versions were definitely not on the next line - “but heaven knows I’m miserable now”. Well, Wayne and Tom may not have gone into the game after a drunken hour (unlike the writer of this rubbish), but they would deserve a drink afterwards, Wayne for how the team reacted to the hammerings of the last two weeks, and Wee Tam for fitting back into the front row like he’d never been away. As someone asked me afterwards - how do you cope with such inconsistency?

I have to say that it was a very surreal atmosphere at the Gardens today, totally caused by the events in Sydney - surreal to the extent that an alien would have thought that it was a Salvador Dali convention. By the end of the afternoon, we went away feeling that we had been touched by Picasso. After his two worst games in a green shirt, Air Shane pulled out his best, controlling the game, kicking intelligently behind the Tykes’ defensive line, and producing such a sweet try to put Saints into a lead that they never lost.

It wouldn’t be Saints though without a blip. Fortunately, this came very early on, with Gordon Ross kicking an early penalty, followed by Liam Botham cutting a great line before sliding in for a try. Ten points down at home (again) was not what was required, especially in the conditions. It was a day for simple rugby, and from going ten down, Saints played it with glorious simplicity.

Unfortunately for those of us watching, this simplicity did mean that there were errors. A lot of errors. In fact if you’d said to me after ten minutes that Saints would have thirty one points by half time, then I have thought that you’d been on the sauce all morning. Still, at one point it seemed that if the ball wasn’t be dropped, then it was put placed over the Leeds tryline. The first try was very reminiscent of a play used at Leicester, with Bruce finding the right line and combining with Johnny Howard and AB to dive in for the score. Not bad for someone who left Bath with a suspected broken leg last Saturday.

From this point on Shine shone. With significantly less onrushing traffic than in previous weeks, he was allowed to use his boot to full effect, but it was his dancing feet that brought the second try, a short pass off the back of a scrum allowing him to go in, go out, go clear and go under the posts from 35 metres. 14-10. We’ll take that, it looks like we’ve woken up.

We could have done without losing Mark Connors to an ankle injury just after that second try, because it meant that the rest that Rob Hunter was getting after weeks in the front line was cut short, but if that was the only casualty Saints suffered, then we came off a lot better than Leeds, who lost Phil Christophers, Diego Albanese, Matt Holt and Rob Rawlinson all injured during the game. In fact, such was the paucity of the situation that Holt had to come back onto the field, clearly limping, to replace Rawlinson for the last two minutes.

Shine added a penalty from the touchline to make it 17-10, and then, under an increasing amount of pressure, Leeds self-destructed. First Gordon Ross went to the bin for hands in a ruck, quickly followed by John Leslie going over for a third try after a very clever grubber kick by that man Drahm with the Tykes defence unable to turn on the wet turf. Dan Scarbrough then also walked, allegedly for throwing a punch, and with the thirteen trying to cover gaps that fifteen had been struggling to, Bruce’s kick to the corner found James Brooks eager to complete the relatively simple task of falling over the line - relatively simple compared to the trickier task of catching the ball in the wet. 31-10, a bonus points secured, and it hadn’t even got to half time. That will do very nicely.

If anything, the break came at exactly the wrong time for Saints, because I’m sure that if they’d had the extra five minutes at thirteen men, they’d have scored again. That said, Shane did miss an early penalty to stretch the lead further, but as the Gardens got quieter, Leeds came back into the game. There was a tendency from the Tykes to make too many lateral runs to try and break the wide green line, but with so many dangerous runners opposing them, it was good to see that the line was strong. It was amazing to see what another experienced head in the pack did for the team, certainly for the organisation, and it could well prove to be that Wee Tam has been the most missed Saint of all. In the conditions though, if a team started moving forwards, it was very difficult to stop them, and Dan Hyde rolled off a maul to go over in the Shrubbery corner. Gordon Ross kicked an impressive conversion, and what seemed like a comfortable lead was now down to 14.

Sensibly, Saints elected to win the match first rather than put on a show. The next kickable penalty was kicked, and the pack began to eat up territory in keeping possession as much as possible. Robbie Morris had his most impressive game of the season, and the returning Grant Seely also did valuable work in keeping the bandwagon rolling.

With the Tykes going for a try bonus point, it was somewhat inevitable that they would make mistakes in the pursuit of that, and one of those mistakes led to the fifth try. Mark Tucker, on for John Leslie, pounced on a spilt pass, and with three nifty pieces of footwork, kicked through from halfway to dive on the ball before Scarbrough and slide into the padding (was I not the only one thinking thank God we weren’t at Stockport?). Shane’s last telling contribution to the day was to kick the conversion, and the game, if not exactly hanging in the balance, was won.

Tucks nearly reproduced an exact copy of his try just over sixty seconds later, but this time his last touch was slightly too heavy, but at least he got the chance to renew his relationship with the pads! The same man chasing him down again, Dan Scarbrough, then got the chance for his try-scoring moment, breaking the line and running round behind the posts, but time had really run out for the Tykes - there was no way Saints were going to let another one get through.

And finally, the closing act. Matt Miles, another late replacement broke the line like a long lost centre, dummied one way, flicked the ball the other, and Bruce dived through under the posts to bring to an end what turned out to be a very decisive victory. Personally, I’ve seen better games, but I’ll take a 24 point win any day of the week (I’d take a one point victory any day of the week though). Certain players - Morris, Howard, Brooks - looked convincing, and should give Smudger something to think about for next week. On the Leeds side, I can see why they rate David Rees as their best players so far this season, as he was always a handful, and the scrum-half, Clive Stuart-Smith, also had an impressive outing.

One year ago to the very weekend, Saints swamped Quins in a quagmire, welcomed back their internationals, and went on to win at Welford Road on the following Saturday. Can the trick be performed again next week at Castle Grim? Who knows. Part one of the season is now complete, and Saints lie in second (this was written before the Irish-Falcons match). Granted, it hasn’t been as convincing as it could have been, but there have been some very good victories as well as very bad defeats. From now on, the ZP becomes fragmented by Europe, the Six Nations and the Powergen Cup. Each match will be its own season in itself, and just as Wasps did last year, any team that can put a run together will be very difficult to halt. Let’s hope we saw them yesterday.

Final word on the atmosphere. How bad would it have been if England had lost?

Well done Daws, Grays, Wally, Ben and Pasky. You made us proud.